You have overlooked the fact that you can not install mint-meta-codecs or mint-meta-debian-core which are standard on any LMDE system. If you did manage to install them, I'd like to know how because I haven't found a work around.

These packages are available in the repos, if you can't get them by using apt-get install or synaptic, maybe you should change your sources. Anyway, if you don't want to edit your sources file, you can always download those packages from the linuxmint page (they are available in the main repository): packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Debian ... It is not the best solution but it might help.

BTW: If you a are going to edit your sources.list, choose the right mirrors, please have a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=185&t=112047

lizbeth wrote:You have overlooked the fact that you can not install mint-meta-codecs or mint-meta-debian-core which are standard on any LMDE system. If you did manage to install them, I'd like to know how because I haven't found a work around.

You'll have to locate the missing dependencies in order to install these meta packages. I'm posting from a Debian Wheezy installation right now that I converted to LMDE, running the MATE desktop.

You can go to snapshot.debian.org to get the missing deps. On a 64-bit system, I believe you need pidgin-facebookchat, gstreamer0.10-esd, and defoma to enable the meta packages to install. For a 32-bit system you have to add gstreamer0.10-pitfdll as well.

I simply went to snapshot.debian.org and downloaded the most recent versions of these that I could find. Since they're deprecated anyway, nothing really seems to care about them being there, except the meta packages.

Also, installing the pidgin package gets you into a little extra dependency chase if I recall, but installing it, then running sudo apt-get -f install fixes it right up.

My Wheezy install is running with all the proper Mint meta packages, the Mint preferences file, and pointing at Debian Wheezy sources (in addition to the Mint packages repo) with zero problems. I also run MATE's Wheezy repo since it is updated when Mint's MATE packages are not. It's pinned in the preferences file at the same level as Mint (700).

Wheezy isn't really going to change too much between now and its release as Stable so I expect this setup will be good for some time yet.

Thanks for that. I went there to snapshot didn't see it at first, but i found it..... The crazy thing is I have it installed on my lmde cinnamon system. I looked it up in synaptic, it's there. I have the same repos in the one I'm converting but it's not there.

Sounds like you have your basic installation working, that's good. Not sure about your pulseadiou situation. It worked straightaway for me, although I did remove it in favor of ALSA-only since I use my PC to record with using Ardour/Jack, and Jack an pulse don't play nice together. If you notice, my mint-meta-debian-mate package has a different date than what's in the repos. I modded it to remove the hard dependency on pulse.

lizbeth wrote:The crazy thing is I have it installed on my lmde cinnamon system. I looked it up in synaptic, it's there. I have the same repos in the one I'm converting but it's not there.

In the Mint ISOs for LMDE, you'll notice these packages are listed in the Local/Obsolete view in Synaptic. They're holdovers from earlier ISOs and no longer reside in a referenced repo, that's why they're listed in that view. If you install and update from a newer Debian base, you won't find these packages in the repo, as you found out.

It seems Mint just keeps building from existing ISOs when they make a new spin. I wish they'd start from a fresh base each time. They'd find these outdated dependency issues in their meta packages then.

E: Release file for http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease is expired (invalid since 110d 20h 3min 42s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.

Not the 1st time I've tried this and got this error....

This is because Mint pulls a copy of the Debian repo at a point in time, and it's never updated again until the next Update Pack begins development. Apt gives an error if it thinks the repo being used is too old and possibly contains outdated packages. You have to create an apt config file with a parameter in it to ignore expiration warnings. I forget the exact command, but it's documented here in the forums. You'll find it easily with a search.

If I was at my Mint computer I could find it for you, but alas...my wife's Win7 laptop.

I had done this successfully previously on an Asus EEE netbook. This time, however, I ended up with an XFCE window manager that had, as far as I could tell, absolutely no Linux Mint enhancements, including not having the standard Linux Mint background (I have the mouse icon on the blue background).

I couldn't figure out what configuration files would need to change to get this result. So, for the time being, I just set the theme to Mint-X and the window manager appearance to be Mint-X (neither of which do much).

There is no longer an official LMDE XFCE release so I think this wouldn't work anymore. for LMDE your choices for official distro are Mate and Cinnamon, therefore you'd have to set the items manually that you'd wish to have.

Anothe option might be to install an older version of LMDE before gnome2 became no more and upgrade it....

Seriously though, if it is XFCE you wish, migrate to solydXK and downlad the xfce that suits you, be it 32 or 64 bit. Moonlight and so many others are included... you will love it.. All the best admins in LMDE are working @ solydxk and the trun around time with the rolling releases is about monthly and and iso's every other or so depending on need and such.

Lizbeth, we know that you are very involved in SolydXK (french moderator for solydxk forum) but please stop advertising like this without answering his question.

Yes SolydX is a really nice distro but he is asking how to convert a Debian XFCE to LMDE XFCE. He is close to succeed in this operation.So in order to finish everything, roberb, you should just install some Mint related package : mint-themes, mint-backgrounds... type mint in synaptic and look for the Minty package